An American Oil Find That Holds More Than All of OPEC [UT,CO]

ABC ^ | Nov. 13, 2012 | By ALAN FARNHAM

[Red Badger]

Drillers in Utah and Colorado are poking into a massive shale deposit trying to find a way to unlock oil reserves that are so vast they would swamp OPEC.

A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated that if half of the oil bound up in the rock of the Green River Formation could be recovered it would be "equal to the entire world's proven oil reserves."

Both the GAO and private industry estimate the amount of oil recoverable to be 3 trillion barrels.

"In the past 100 years — in all of human history -- we have consumed 1 trillion barrels of oil. There are several times that much here," said Roger Day, vice president for operations for American Shale Oil (AMSO).

The Green River drilling is beginning as shale mining is booming in the U.S. and a report by the International Energy Agency predicts that the U.S. will become the world's largest oil producer by 2020. That flood of oil can have major implications for the U.S. economy as well as the country's foreign policy which has been based on a growing scarcity of oil.

The IEA report does not detail where the American oil will be coming from, but the largest deposit is the Green River formation which has yet to tapped in any significant way.

This tantalizing bonanza, however, remains just out of reach, at least for now. The cost of extracting the Green River oil at the moment would be higher than what it could be sold for. And there are significant environmental obstacles.

The operation might require so much water it would compete with Denver and agriculture for vital supplies, the GAO report warned, could pollute underground streams, affect fish and other wildlife, and kick up so ...

[Red Badger]

An initial exploration well 40 miles northwest of Rifle, Colorado, owned by American Shale Oil LLC. It sits atop part of the Green River Formation of shale, believed to contain 3 trillion barrels of oil. (Courtesy Roger L. Day/American Shale Oil LLC)

[EQAndyBuzz]

Well we need to pay China back with something. Might as well be this deposit.

[MissesBush]

Don’t worry. Kim Jong Obama will whip off an executive order in a matter of days to ensure not a drop of oil flows out of here.

[TurboZamboni]

Meet the next UN World Heritage Site.

[The Cajun]

Looks like a little truck based *work over* rig, they can't be going deep with that thing.
The type of rig our crews would say, "The driller shows up in the morning, puts a quarter in a slot and it cranks up".

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

Exactly

[Da Coyote]

And of the Obamadork and his den-O-idiots try to stop it, the intelligent western states should just secede (e.g, California wouldn’t secede.)

We’d be worth more than the entire area of blue sceptic areas that voted for that excrement pile, that mass of putrescence, that odious collection of nothingness, that......(you get the point.)

[Red Badger]

Ping!......

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Rifle, Colorado is where Exxon first tried pulling oil from shale using what was described as “radiation extraction.”
The process was; dig up the shale and crush it down to 4 inch chunks. Hit it with radiation to make the oil come out. The 4 inch chunks were now 6 inch chunks. Re-stack the chunks and call the Sierra Club.

[AZLiberty]

A perfect reason for Sarah Palin to be our next President. I hope she’s building up her knowledge of the oil industry for the next four years.

[Abathar]

I got a nice 10 point mule deer not more than a mile from that site.

Nothing out there but dirt, rock, sage and small pines.

[Red Badger]

Reminds me of Wyatt’s Torch................

[kidd]

3 trillion barrels of oil would cover the entire state of Utah with over 9 feet of oil.

That’s a lot of oil.

[MileHi]

Nothing out there but dirt, rock, sage and small pines.

And mud...

[5thGenTexan]

So we have the means to defund Al-Queda and its backers. Lets see what both sides of the aisle do. I bet there will not be much difference.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Quick, declare it a national park!

[re_nortex]

And there are significant environmental obstacles.

So what? I don't care one bit. But Zero and his minions will use this as another excuse to stymie domestic energy production.

Drill baby drill! Frack baby frack!

I was able to easily forgive Nixon for Watergate. His real crime was the creation of the vile EPA.

[buwaya]

I suspect there are many similar reserves around the world. These are as yet unexplored or incompletely explored because they were not considered recoverable until recently. The US may not be a bit exceptional, other than in having had more applicable exploration done - so far. This will certainly change and great new finds will become commonplace. If so, natural gas and petroleum will be local local resources, more similar to hydro or coal, and not global concerns.

[The Great RJ]

Between Obama’s no energy policies and never ending environmentalist law suits we should live so long as to see any significant oil taken from this area. Instead we will waste billions blighting the land with worthless windmills and solar arrays while gasoline soars to over $5 per gallon and average Americans are shivering or sweltering in darkened homes because they can barely afford electricity.

[Red Badger]

...and yet the learned people, they tell us that it comes from fossils...........